After Hanabi left, Mizuki wasted no time tracking down Naruto.
The live comments flooding in reflected exactly what the audience was thinking.
The camera had already caught several of Mizuki's expressions during Hanabi and Naruto's earlier conversation—each one like he'd just eaten shit.
[Mizuki: URGENT URGENT URGENT!]
[Two coins say this guy's about to start something!]
[Did Lady Hanabi clock him just now?]
[My years of watching anime tell me this man is definitely a villain. No question.]
"Hanabi—aren't you heading home?"
After saying goodbye to Naruto, Hiashi and Hinata started back, but Hanabi had no intention of following.
"Mm. We graduated today, didn't we? I thought I'd take a walk around the village."
As she said it, she gave her ankle a small, idle turn.
She wasn't wearing geta today—she had switched to a matching pair of black-lacquered, red-cord zōri with red soles. Graduation called for zōri over geta; it was more proper for the occasion. She had actually considered wearing her yabane zōri instead—the more traditional choice for ceremonies—but they didn't pair well with this outfit, so she'd stayed with these black-and-red ones.
"Should I have Natsu come with you?" Hiashi asked.
"No need. I just… can only remember Konoha this way."
Hanabi smiled.
Hiashi and Hinata both fell silent.
Hanabi couldn't see. Without the Byakugan to sweep her surroundings, the only way she could take in the village was by moving through it herself.
But that was only the reason she gave.
In truth, Hanabi had already mapped every inch of Konoha inside and out—long ago.
The real issue was this: without a reason, intervening in events and redirecting fate was difficult.
That was a conclusion she'd reached after years of observation.
With the right reason, changing the course of fate was far easier than forcing your way through it bare-handed.
A reason worked like a lever. One part of effort could move ten parts of destiny.
In simpler terms: work with the current, not against it.
Right now, she had the reason of "wanting to memorize Konoha." That made it perfectly natural to appear in certain scenes.
Without it, showing up in front of Naruto out of nowhere would have been awkward.
To change the script at will—that was the protagonist's privilege. Hanabi was only a supporting character.
The rest unfolded as expected.
Mizuki lured Naruto into stealing the Scroll of Seals with the story about a "make-up exam." And Naruto, bless him, believed every word and went along with it.
At the Hokage's residence, Naruto was even spotted by the Third—though moments later the old man was knocked flat by Naruto's Sexy Jutsu.
"So this follows the manga version," Hanabi noted.
In the manga, the Third had caught Naruto in the act of stealing the scroll. The anime moved that scene to later. The fact that this world wasn't strictly following the anime continuity was a relief.
Good. It's not purely the anime.
She'd noticed earlier that quite a few elements in this world matched the anime version of Naruto. She had half-expected most of it to follow that continuity. Seeing a manga-version detail was almost touching.
On the question of the final boss, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki—Hanabi's opinion of the anime's handling was that it was unbelievably lame.
She didn't dislike the existence of differences between manga and anime. It was just that a particularly bad version dragged down the overall tone, which affected her by association—and that she minded.
She wanted interesting content. An unscripted stage was the most compelling kind.
Take Hikari Uchiha—that jokingly nicknamed "my wife Uchiha" who appeared in the Naruto games—a genuinely fascinating character in her own right. If the game's lore made it into this world as well, that could be entertaining.
Alright. Next step: find Naruto.
Finding him was simple enough. As this story's protagonist, Naruto was currently on screen for anyone paying attention.
The area was probably somewhere on the forest outskirts—Mizuki had chosen the location specifically, so it had some degree of concealment, but since Iruka managed to find it, it couldn't be completely off the map.
Cross-referencing a few candidate locations against the architectural and terrain features visible in the background of the broadcast: easy.
— It sounded complicated. But intelligence analysis like this was basic shinobi work.
When Hanabi found him, Naruto was hunched over the scroll, breathing hard.
The broadcast had already shown Naruto grumbling after reading the first entry—Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu, of all things, the technique he was worst at. So he'd probably been drilling it ever since. The way he was resting now suggested he'd already gotten it down.
"My, what a coincidence. Naruto."
Hanabi's voice appeared behind him without warning.
"Whoa—oh, it's you, Hanabi! You scared me!"
Naruto nearly jumped out of his sandals.
"What are you doing here?" Hanabi asked, feigning ignorance.
Naruto glanced left and right, then broke into a conspiratorial grin. "You'll find out tomorrow. Right now this is top-secret mission time—Uzumaki Naruto's secret mission!"
He'd taken Mizuki's story at face value. He genuinely believed this was some kind of confidential make-up exam.
"And what about you? Why are you here?" he shot back.
"Mm. We're going to be shinobi now, so I thought I'd walk the whole village—to mark the occasion and commit it to memory."
"I'm just saying, Hanabi, dressed like that, even if you walked until tomorrow you wouldn't make it halfway around," Naruto said.
"Actually, my walking pace is quite—"
Hanabi's voice shifted—suddenly coming from right beside him.
Naruto snapped his head around. Hanabi, who had been standing in front of him a moment ago, was now at his elbow.
"WHOA—!!" He yelped and toppled backward onto the ground. "Stop doing that every single time!"
This wasn't the first time.
"Scroll of Seals," Hanabi said, tilting her head. "Naruto—what exactly are you up to?"
She already knew perfectly well what the Scroll of Seals was.
But her current method of perceiving the world—releasing chakra to feel the space around her—required proximity. To sense the scroll's details, she needed to be close.
"Wait, when did—?!"
Naruto stared, baffled. The scroll he'd been holding was now in Hanabi's hands.
Hanabi examined it with mild interest. Mild being the operative word.
In canon, the only technique confirmed to be in the Scroll of Seals was Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu.
As a side note—many people assumed Flying Thunder God was also sealed inside, but it wasn't. Flying Thunder God wasn't a forbidden technique and didn't harm the user. It simply had no one left to pass it on. Simply put, no one could learn it. The notes might as well have been the Landau barrier—even a Nobel laureate would struggle to make sense of them without the proper foundation.
Impure World Reincarnation was probably in there. But it didn't fit Hanabi's current direction, so she had no interest in it.
Keep the character consistent. I'm not a necromancer.
She wanted interesting content, not a power fantasy off-brand from her role.
At that moment, the Dimensional Popularity Stage shifted again. The broadcast cut to the Third Hokage—the old man was peering into his crystal ball, using his Telescope Jutsu to observe Naruto and Hanabi from afar.
"Just what I'd expect from the Hyuga prodigy. Her alertness is remarkable."
When he saw Hanabi pocket the scroll, the Third visibly relaxed.
Being knocked flat by Naruto had been pure bad luck. He'd been worried Naruto might glimpse the scroll's contents and somehow use them to break the seal on the Nine-Tails.
As for the scroll being in Hanabi's hands—the Third had no concerns there. Her eyes had been lost, in a sense, because of Konoha. In some ways, Hanabi was as "rooted in the Leaf" as anyone could be.
Hanabi herself felt a twinge of anticlimax.
— Wait. Whatever happened to the whole "the scroll is the Third's test for Naruto" arc?
Why is there zero conspiracy here?
He was just... careless?
There's no conspiracy, which means I have no angle to work with.
No conspiracy. Fine. I'll make my own.
First things first: copy down a few of the techniques in this scroll.